Dan Aleshire, a leader in higher education, coined the phrase “moral and spiritual maturity” during a recent Wabash Center podcast interview. He named those as goals for education. An entirely different view of education was presented during the Great Depression — “take a lad who steals coal from the railyard, educate him, and he will steal railroads!” In order to discuss the validity of Aleshire’s statement, one must get some clarity about his words.
Spiritual is a word with vague meanings, almost an empty vessel into which individuals and groups pour any concoction they like. A reality and experiences exist to which spiritual points, but the underpinning and connotations can be very different, and even contradictory.
Abrahamic traditions emphasize a transcendent creator of the world and its inhabitants. Religion calls individuals to a transcendent purpose, meaning and future. The creation is good and objects of creation are real and not illusory. Those are foundations of mysticism, prayer and activism — all considered to be spiritual.
Many religious traditions originating in the Indian subcontinent focus on the individual and inward-looking practices and experiences. Some are agnostic or atheistic, without any need for deities. Truth and reality are mental constructs, and illusions of material things are due to ignorance. The goal of spiritual disciplines is knowledge of self that silently overcomes the illusion. Yogis, the masters of yoga and meditation, shut out the world through disciplines of breathing exercises and physical position in order to focus inward.
Contemporary secular alternatives multiply. Affirmation of transcendence or beliefs and practices identified as religious are abandoned. The intense focus is on the inner self as the primary reality. Yoga is viewed as healthy physical exercise, with no deities adorning the meditation halls. Meditation is a stripped of any religious trappings. That provides a rationale for accepting meditation and yoga into state-funded schools and other locations where public religion and prayer are forbidden. Secular alternatives fit and encourage individualism that has become the spirit of our age.
Moreover, American society is in the midst of rapid demographic and cultural change. A new majority is growing; our world is multipolar and fragmented. The sad fact is that our knowledge, words and language, our social skills and our social infrastructures are inadequate for the society in which we now live and that our children and grandchildren inherit. David Brooks noted in a lecture in Indianapolis a few days ago that isolation and individualism are strangling us; whereas we are “overly politicized and under moralized.”
One result is that we are so divided that common words like spiritual, morality, education and maturity lack precision and elicit little agreement.
Two words central to Aleshire’s phrase are education and maturity. He focused on formal education, but education for life is much broader than formal classes and book learning. It is all encompassing and includes what used to be called character formation. It is comprehensive requiring lifelong learning. Therefore, receiving any diploma or certificate is only commencement.
Maturity is also a process and not a destination. It is a search for how you can live your life. How can you understand the material world around you, understand your neighbors, and understand who you are in relation to everything around us?
Each of us is a minority of one, but we are social by our very nature. No person can live, learn or mature in isolation. Hence, we form groups within which we can share agreement on basic beliefs, commitments, and correct conduct — actually social formation. We are fortunate to live with neighbors in Crawfordsville so we can decide together our paths in inclusive education and character formation toward a maturity that will enable us all to achieve our highest potential and thrive.
Raymond B. Williams, Crawfordsville, LaFollette Distinguished Professor in the Humanities emeritus, contributed this guest column.
